Hi Felicia & Sluts the Wine Bar

Chef Imana’s brain-children in Oakland & San Francisco

The story of Hi Felicia began when chef Imana hosted intimate dinner parties as a supper club from her Oakland apartment deck overlooking the hills. Just over a year after she began that project, we were starting construction on her Brick & Mortar in downtown Oakland. The professional relationship started as a friendship, after Anand dined with Imana in her home in 2021. The character of her team, the intimacy of the environment, and the performance of her service from her home restaurant were the initial points of inspiration – and we threw in an eclectic mix of campy, moody and romantic elements that anchor the dining room with a million little stories.

The exterior is inspired by “Cactus Cooler,” a now discontinued Southern California soda brand; Imana and Anand both grew up in Los Angeles and immediately the aesthetic and entry sequence started to form. A bright orange tonal parklet greets guests and provides a space to mingle with strangers and sip Cava out of vintage glasses. The bold lime green storefront is layered with a simple planter box full of cacti. On the entry door, a hand-painted sign by Charlie Ertola reads “Hi Felicia, the Brick & Mortar” in Imana’s handwriting – a riff off the handwritten menus Imana provides to each guest at the beginning of the meal. Inside, a custom neon artwork by Meryl Pataky is paired with ebony-stained woodwork by Kirk Svensson. A bubble letter mural is balanced by a curated selection of vintage and new artworks sourced from local thrift stores and commissioned through friends like artist Gabriel Isaac Kasor. And vintage lighting and furniture round out the dining room, creating a deeply storied and vibrant atmosphere for fine dining. Imana coined the term “vulgar fine dining,” and the design is just the start of the conversation.

Chapter two of Chef Imana’s brick and mortar journey landed her on Folsom Street, the world-famous SoMa corridor known for queer clubs and fetish venues. A radical approach, which has become the norm for Imana and Anand’s design processes, is applied to the storefront of this natural wine bar and strip club – instead of blacking out the windows (a gesture leftover from when anonymity was critical for safety on Folsom Street), we painted the façade gold and left windows wide open, positioning the stage and dancer’s pole for passersby to see. Nothing to hide here!

Furnishings, art, light fixtures and materials were sourced locally from thrift stores and vintage retailers. A gigantic purple velvet curtain wraps the space, with gold ceilings and two tongue-in-cheek neon signs by Meryl Pataky. The splatterpaint motif is continued from Hi Felicia, this time in the restroom and bedroom (yes, there’s a bed and a shower in a room with a door). There’s a bubble machine, a confetti cannon, a money gun, and some of the highest quality natural wines in the world. How’s that for accessibility?